Cancer is a class of diseases in which cells divide absent limits that normally control growth of cells in tissue. Uncontrolled cancer cell growth often leads to invasion and destruction of tissues adjacent to the cancer cells since cancer cells are typically capable of living in environments different from the tissue from which the cells were transformed. As a result, cancer cells often spread to other locations in the body where they may rapidly replicate causing additional tumors, resulting trauma, and sometimes death. The rate at which a line of cancer cells replicates is often a determining factor in the aggressiveness and eventual lethality of the cancer. Rates of replication for particular types of cancer are also considered in developing strategies for cancer therapy.
Nearly all cancer cells are abnormal in their genetic material as compared to cells from which they were transformed. Some progress has been made in developing therapies that more directly target the molecular abnormalities in cancer cells. These therapies ideally inhibit or kill cancer cells while not extensively damaging normal cells. Nevertheless, the progress that has been made in developing targeted therapies remains severely insufficient since about one-quarter of deaths in the United States in 2011 are expected to have resulted from cancer.
Development of therapies that more directly target the molecular abnormalities in cancer cells has traditionally been directed to identifying specific abnormalities shared by one histological cancer type or by related cancer types. Such therapies have generally not been directed to abnormalities shared across cancer types. As such, therapies that more directly target molecular abnormalities have been generally limited to narrow categories of patients suffering from cancer of a specific histological type with a specifically-identified molecular abnormality.
Replikin peptides are a family of small peptides that have been correlated with the phenomenon of rapid replication in malignancies, as well as viruses, and other infectious organisms, and have been noted to be conserved in pathogens. The association of Replikin peptides with rapid replication has been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,189,800, 7,894,999, and 7,442,761, among others. Both Replikin concentration (number of Replikins per 100 amino acids) and Replikin composition have been correlated with the functional phenomenon of rapid replication.
Replikin peptides have likewise been identified as candidates for vaccine development in viruses and other pathogens including as candidates for vaccines across strains of pathogen, such as across strains of influenza. See, e.g., U.S. application Ser. No. 12/581,112. Immunogenic and/or protective trials using Replikin-based vaccines have demonstrated success in influenza virus, taura syndrome virus, and SARS coronavirus as well as glioblastoma, small cell lung, and lymphoma cancers. See, e.g., U.S. application Ser. No. 12/581,112, U.S. application Ser. No. 12/108,458, U.S. Pat. No. 7,442,761, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,420,028 (FIG. 4). Nevertheless, Replikin peptides have not previously been identified as expressly conserved across types of cancer and no therapies have until now been developed using such conserved peptides across different types of cancer. Identification of such peptides would provide the medical community with therapies useful across cancer types where the therapies would be directed at peptides involved in rapid replication in malignancy. Such therapies would additionally provide more flexible treatments for cancer and would reduce productions costs, distribution costs, diagnostic costs, therapeutic costs and storage costs.
Need remains in the art for identification of peptides useful in vaccines against cancer. Need likewise remains in the art for therapies directed against molecular abnormalities that are shared across cancer types.